Inspector Queen’s Own Case

1 At First the Infant

The dove-colored Chevrolet was parked fifty feet from the hospital entrance. The car was not new and not old, just a Sunday-hosed-looking family job with a respectable dent here and there in the fenders.

The fat man squeezed behind the wheel went with it like a used tire. He wore a home-pressed dark blue suit with a few food spots on the lapels, a white shirt already damp from the early morning June sun, and a blue tie with a wrinkled knot. A last summer’s Macy’s felt hat with a sweat-stained band lay on the seat beside him.

The object in point was to look like millions of other New Yorkers. In his business, the fat man liked to say, visibility was the worst policy. The main thing was not to be noticed by some nosy noonan who could lay the finger on you in court afterwards. Luckily, he did not have to worry about impressing his customers. The people he did business with, the fat man often chuckled, would avail themselves of his services if he came to work in a Bikini.

The fat man’s name was Finner, A. Burt Finner. He was known to numerous laboring ladies of the nightclubs as Fin, from his hobby of stuffing sharp five-dollar bills into their nylons. He had a drab little office in an old office building on East 49th Street.

Finner cleaned his teeth with the edge of a match packet cover, sucked his cheeks in several times, and settled back to digest his breakfast.

He was early, but in these cases the late bird found himself looking down an empty worm hole. Five times out of ten, Finner sometimes complained, they wanted to change their confused little minds at the last second.

He watched the hospital entrance without excitement. As he watched, his lips began to form a fat O, his winkless eyes sank deeper into his flesh, the pear-shaped face took on a look of concentration; and before he knew it he was whistling. Finner heard his own music happily. He was that rarity, a happy fat man.

The tune he whistled was Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life.

My theme song, he called it.

When the girl came out of the hospital the fat man was on the steps to greet her, smiling.

The seven-passenger limousine wound correctly along the slow lane of the parkway. It was old-fashioned, powerful, and immaculate.

A chauffeur with white hair and a red face was at the wheel. Beside him rode a comfortably buxom woman with a pretty nose. She was in her late forties. Under her cloth coat she wore a nurse’s nylon uniform.

Behind the chauffeur and the nurse there was shining glass, and behind the shining glass sat the Humffreys.

Sarah Stiles Humffrey leaned forward to complain to the speaking-tube, “Henry, can’t you drive faster?”

The white-haired chauffeur said, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Then why don’t you?” Mrs. Humffrey cried.

“Because the legal limit on the Hutchinson River Parkway is forty, ma’am.”

“You’re being difficult again. Alton, tell him to go faster.”

Her husband smiled. “We’ll get there, Sarah.”

“I’m nervous as a cat!”

He patted her hand. She had a large hand, beautifully groomed. Mrs. Humffrey was a large woman, with large features over which she regularly toiled and despaired. She was not vain; she had long ago given up vanity to indulge a childish resentment at the genie that had drawn her body out like a Yankee farmer’s. It was really ironic, she would pout, because the last farmer in her family had pastured his cows on the Boston Common in the seventeenth century.

Her husband might have been her male twin. This, too, was Mrs. Humffrey’s secret sorrow. Once, early in their marriage, she had shed tears in his arms. “Oh, Alton, why is it that what’s distinguished-looking in a man is so often ugly in a woman?”

The outburst had displeased him. She never referred to her physical shortcomings again. But after that she began to wear — within the limits of conservative taste, of course — the most feminine frocks her dressmaker could design.

Her husband was an angular man in a black suit so dreary it could only have been planned. A Humffrey had made the Mayflower crossing; and from the days of Cole’s Hill and Plimoth Plantation Humffreys had deposited their dust among the stones of New England. Many had distinguished themselves in colonial history; one of them founded the fortune; his sons and their sons and grandsons increased it; the Humffrey millions became a historic responsibility; tycoons arose among them, preachers, statesmen, Brahmins; and they all culminated in Alton K. Humffrey.

He had married Sarah Stiles because he was the last of his line.

There had been other reasons, of course; Marrying a Stiles was very nearly as desirable as being a Humffrey. Sarah Stiles had family, taste, and breeding; and she was plain, foreshadowing a proper attitude toward marriage. He was almost as comfortable with her as when he was alone. She respected tradition and shared his horror of vulgarity. And she placed the same high value on the name of Humffrey. Even her neurotic tendencies could be charming; they made him feel forgiving toward her.

Forgiveness was necessary. In one thing she had failed him — unfortunately, in the most important thing. The fault was hers; he had never doubted it. Nor had she. Still, they had subjected themselves to the distasteful corroboration of medical science. It was true; Sarah Stiles Humffrey would never bear a child. Divorce being out of the question, they were doing the next best thing.

So Alton K. Humffrey patted his wife’s hand.

It was her left hand, and his right. He withdrew his quickly. Tolerant as he could be toward her imperfections, he could not forgive his own. He had been born without the tip of his little finger. Usually he concealed the offending member by curling it against his palm. This caused the ring finger to curl, too. When he raised his hand to hail someone the gesture looked Roman, almost papal. It rather pleased him.

“Alton, suppose she changed her mind!” his wife was saying.

“Nonsense, Sarah.”

“But suppose she did?”

“I’m sure we can rely on that lawyer fellow to see that she did not.”

“I wish we could have done it in the usual way,” she said restlessly.

His lips compressed. In crucial matters Sarah was a child. “You know why, my dear.”

“I really don’t.”

He decided to indulge her. “Have you forgotten that we’re not exactly the ideal age for a legal proceeding?”

“Oh, Alton, you could have managed it.” One of Sarah Humffrey’s endearing qualities was her unconquerable conviction that her husband could manage anything.

“This way is safest. No ghost to come haunting us five or ten years from now. And no publicity.”

“Yes.” Sarah Humffrey shivered. Alton was so right. He always was. If only people of our class could live like ordinary people, she thought.

Mrs. Humffrey leaned forward and said into the speaking-tube, “Henry, won’t you drive a little faster?”

“No, ma’am,” the white-haired chauffeur said firmly.

The buxom nurse beside him stared straight ahead, hands quietly in her lap, as if they were waiting.

When the girl came out of the hospital the fat man was on the steps to greet her, smiling.

“Good morning!” he said. “All checked out okay?”

“Yes.” She had a deep, slightly hoarse, voice.

“No complications or anything?”

“No.”

“And our little arrival is well and happy, I hope?” Finner started to raise the flap of the blue blanket from the face of the infant the girl was carrying, but she put her shoulder in the way.

“Don’t touch him,” she said.

“Now, now,” the fat man said. “I’ll bet he’s a regular lover-boy. How could he miss with such a doll for a ma?” He was still trying to get a look at her baby. But she kept fending him off.

“Well, let’s go,” Finner said curtly.

He took the rubberized bag of diapers and bottles of formula from her and waddled to his car. She dragged after him, clutching the blanketed bundle to her breast.

The fat man had the front door open for her. She shook his hand off and got in.

Finner shrugged. “Where do you want I should drop you? ” he asked as he heaved his blubber up and over.

“I don’t care. I guess my apartment.”

He drove off cautiously. The girl held the blue bundle tight.

She wore a green suède suit and a mannish felt pulled down over one eye. She was striking in a theatrical way, gold hair greenish at the scalp, big hazel eyes, a wide mouth that kept moving around. She had put on no make-up this morning. Her lips were pale and ragged.

She lifted the blanket and looked down at the puckered little face with tremendous intentness.

“Any deformities or birthmarks?” the fat man asked suddenly.

“What?”

He repeated the question.

“No.” She began to rock.

“Did you do what I told you about his clothes?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure there are no identifying marks on the clothes? ” he persisted.

“I told you!” She turned on him in fury. “Can’t you shut up? He’s sleeping.”

“They sleep like drunks. Had an easy time, did you?”

“Easy?” The girl began to laugh. But then she stopped laughing and looked down again.

“Just asking,” Finner said, craning to see the baby’s face. “Sometimes the instruments—”

“He’s perfect merchandise,” the girl said. “They’re getting their money’s worth.”

She began to croon in a sweet and throbbing contralto, rocking the bundle again. The baby blatted, and the girl looked frantic.

“Darlin’, darlin’, what’s the matter? Don’t cry... mama’s got you...”

“Gas,” the fat man said. “Just bubble him.”

She flung him a look of pure hate. She raised the baby to her shoulder and patted his back nervously. He burped and fell asleep again.

A. Burt Finner drove in delicate silence.

All at once the girl burst out, “I can’t, I won’t!”

“Sure you can’t,” Finner said instantly. “Believe me, I’m no hard-hearted Hannah. I got three of my own. But what about him?”

She sat there clutching her baby and looking trapped.

“The important thing in a case like this is to forget yourself. Look,” the fat man said earnestly, “every time you catch yourself thinking of just you, stop and think what all this means to this fine little fella. Do it right now. What would it mean to him if you goofed off now?”

“Well, what?” she said in a hard voice.

“Being raised in a trunk, is what. With cigar smoke and stinking booze fumes to fill his little lungs instead of God’s wonderful fresh air,” the fat man said, “that’s what. You want to raise a kid that way?”

“I wouldn’t do that,” the girl said. “I’d never do it like that! I’d get him a good nurse—”

“I can see you been thinking about it,” A. Burt Finner nodded approvingly, “even though we got an ironclad agreement. Okay, you get him a good nurse. So who’d be his mother, you or this nurse? You’d be slaving day and night to pay her salary and buy certified milk and all, and it’s her he’d love, not you. So what’s the percentage?”

The girl shut her eyes.

“So that’s out. So there he is, back in the trunk. So who’d baptize him, some hotel clerk in Kansas City? Who’d he play with, some rubberlips trumpet player on the junk? What would he teethe on, beer openers and old cigar butts? And,” the fat man said softly, “would he toddle around from table to table calling every visiting Elk from Dayton daddy?”

“You bastard,” the girl said.

“Exactly my point,” the fat man said.

“I could get married!”

He was driving along a side street on the West Side, just passing an empty space at one of the kerbs. He stopped, shifted, and backed the Chevrolet halfway in.

“Congratulations,” Finner said. “Do I know this Mr. Schlemihl who’s going to take another guy’s wild oat and call him sonny-boy?”

“Let me out, you fat creep!”

The fat man smiled. “There’s the door.”

She backed out, her eyes blazing.

He waited.

Not until her shoulders sagged did he know that he had won. She reached back in and laid the bundle carefully on the seat beside him and just as carefully shut the door.

“Goodbye,” she whispered to the bundle.

Finner wiped the sweat off his face. He took a bulky unmarked envelope from his inside pocket and reached over the baby.

“Here’s the balance of your money,” he said.

She looked up in a blind way. Then she snatched the envelope and hurled it at him. It struck his bald head and burst, showering bills all over the seat and floor.

She turned and ran.

“Nice to have met you,” the fat man said kindly. He gathered up the scattered bills and stuffed them in his wallet.

He looked up and down the street. It was empty. He bent over the baby, undid the blanket, examined it. He found a department-store label on the beribboned lawn nightgown, ripped it off, and put the label in his pocket. He found another label on the tiny undershirt and removed that, too. Then he looked the sleeping infant over. Finally, he rewrapped it in the blue blanket and replaced it beside him.

Then he examined the contents of the rubberized bag. When he was satisfied he rezipped it.

“Well, bubba, it’s off to a long life and a damn dull one,” he said to the bundle on the seat. “You’d have had a hell of a lot more fun with her.”

He glanced at his wristwatch, nodded briskly, and drove on toward the West Side highway.

On the highway, driving at a law-abiding thirty, with an occasional friendly glance at the bundle, A. Burt Finner began to whistle.

Soon his whistle changed to song.

He sang, “Ahhhhh, sweet mys-tery of life and love I found youuuuuuuuu...”

The Chevrolet left the Hutchinson River Parkway between Pelham and New Rochelle. It turned into a deserted lane and pulled up behind a limousine with Connecticut plates that was parked there, waiting.

Alton K. Humffrey sprang out of the limousine. He said something to the chauffeur and the nurse, and hurried over to the Chevrolet.

“Here he is,” Finner beamed.

Humffrey stared in at the blue blanket. Then without a word he opened the Chevrolet door.

“Time,” Finner said.

“What?”

“There’s the little matter of the scratch,” the fat man smiled. “Remember, Mr. Humffrey? Balance C.O.D.?”

The millionaire shook his head impatiently. He handed over a bulky unmarked envelope, like the one Finner had offered the girl in the suède suit. Finner opened the envelope and took out the money and counted it.

“He’s all yours,” Finner said, nodding.

Humffrey lifted the bundle out of the car gingerly. Finner handed out the rubberized bag, and the long thin man took that, too.

“You’ll find the formula typed on a blank slip of paper in the bag,” the fat man said, “along with enough bottles and diapers to get you started.”

Humffrey looked at him.

“Something wrong?” Finner asked. “Did I forget something?”

“The birth certificate and the papers,” Humffrey said grimly.

“I told you, Mr. Humffrey. I’ll mail them to you as soon as they’re ready.”

“It was my impression they’d be ready on delivery of the child.”

“My people aren’t magicians,” the fat man said, smiling. “Don’t you trust me?”

“I have very little choice.”

“That’s right, Mr. Humffrey,” Finner said, still smiling. “But you’ll get them. And they’ll be regular works of art.”

“Register the envelope to me, please.”

“Yes, sir.”

Humffrey did not stir until the Chevrolet was gone. Then he walked back to the limousine slowly. The chauffeur was holding the tonneau door open, and Mrs. Humffrey’s arms were reaching through.

“Give him to me, Alton!”

Her husband handed her the baby. With trembling hands she lifted the flap of the blanket.

“Miss Sherwood,” she gasped, “look!”

The buxom nurse with the pretty nose had transferred to the tonneau. “He’s a little beauty, Mrs. Humffrey.” She had a soft impersonal voice. “May I?”

She took the baby, laid it down on one of the jump-seats, and opened the blanket.

“Nurse, he’ll fall off!”

“Not at this age, Mrs. Humffrey,” the nurse smiled. “Mr. Humffrey, is that the bag that came with the baby? May I have it, please?”

“Oh, why is he crying?”

“If you were messed, hungry, and only one week old, Mrs. Humffrey,” Nurse Sherwood said, “you’d let the nasty world know about it, too. There, baby. We’ll have you clean and sweet in no time. Henry, plug the warmer into the dashboard and heat this bottle of formula. Mr. Humffrey, you’d better shut that door while I rediaper Master Humffrey.”

“Master Humffrey!” Sarah Humffrey laughed and cried alternately while her husband peered in. He could not seem to take his eyes from the squirming little body. “Alton, we have a son, a son.”

“Sarah, you’re actually excited.” Alton Humffrey was pleased.

“Nurse, let’s not use the things from that bag, shall we? All the wonderful new things we’ve brought for you, baby!” Mrs. Humffrey zipped open a morocco case. It was full of powders, oils, sterilized cotton, picks, and other nursery necessities. The nurse took a bottle of baby oil and a tin of powder from it silently. “The first thing we’ll do is have him examined by that paediatrician in Greenwich, check his formula... Alton.”

“Yes, dear?”

“Suppose the doctor finds it — him... not as represented?”

Humffrey frowned. “He looks sound enough to me, Sarah.”

“Yes, but dealing with a lawyer like this Finner—”

“There you go again,” her husband said with a trace of irritation. “Finner is reliable, Sarah. I’ve been assured of that. And you read the case histories yourself.”

“But not knowing who his people are—”

“Must we go back to that, my dear?” her husband said patiently. “I don’t want to know who his people are. In a case like this, knowledge is dangerous. This way there’s no red tape, no publicity, and no possibility of repercussions. We know the child comes of good Anglo-Saxon stock, and that the stock is certified as having no hereditary disease on either side, no feeble-mindedness, no criminal tendencies. Does the rest matter?”

“I suppose not, Alton.” His wife fumbled with her gloves. “Nurse, why doesn’t he stop crying?”

“You watch,” Miss Sherwood said over the baby’s furious blats. “Henry, the bottle should be ready.” The chauffeur hastily handed it to her. She removed the aluminum cap and shook some of the milk onto the back of her hand. Nodding, she popped the nipple gently into the little mouth. The baby stopped in mid-blat. He seized the nipple with his tiny jaws and began to suck vigorously.

Mrs. Humffrey stared, fascinated.

Alton K. Humffrey said almost gaily, “Henry, drive us back to the Island.”

The old man turned over in bed and his naked arms flew up against the light from somewhere. It was the wrong light or the wrong direction. Or wasn’t it morning? Something was wrong.

Then he heard the surf and knew where he was and squeezed his eyelids as hard as he could to shut out the room. It was a pleasant room of old random furniture and a salt smell, with rusty shrimp dangling from bleached seaweed on the wallpaper. But the pale blue wavery water lines ran around and around like thoughts, getting nowhere, and they bothered him.

The night air still defended the room coolly, but he could feel the sun ricocheting off the sea and hitting the walls like waves. In two hours it would be a hotbox.

Richard Queen opened his eyes and for a moment looked his arms over. They’re like an anatomical sketch of a cadaver, he thought, worn-out cables of muscle and bone with corrugated covers where skin used to be. But he could feel the life in them, they could still hold their own, they were useful. He brought his hands down into focus, examined the knurls of joints, the rivuleted skin, each pore like a speck of dirt, the wiry debris of gray hairs; but suddenly he closed his eyes again.

It was early, almost as early as when he used to wake in the old days. The alarm would go off to find him already prone on the braided rug doing his fifty push-ups — summer or winter, in green spring light or the gray of the autumn dawn. The hot shave and cold shower, with the bathroom door shut so that his son might sleep on undisturbed. The call-in from the Lieutenant, while breakfast was on the hod, to report any special developments of the night. The Sergeant waiting outside, the drive downtown. Headed for another working day. Listening to the general police calls on the way down, just in case. Maybe a direct word for him on the radiophone from the top floor of the big gold-domed building on Centre Street. His office... “What’s new this morning?”... orders... the important mail... the daily teletype report... the 9 a.m. lineup, the parade of misfits from the Bullpen...

It was all part of a life. Even the corny kidding, and the headaches and heartaches. Good joes sharing the raps and the kudos while administrations came and went, not touching them. Not really touching them, even in shakeups. Because when the dust settled, the old-timers were still there. Until, that is, they were shoved out to pasture.

It’s hard to break the habits of a lifetime, he thought. It’s impossible. What do those old horses think about, munching the grass of their retirement? The races they’d won? The races they could still win, given the chance?

The young ones coming up, always coming up. How many of them could do fifty push-ups? At half his age? But there they were, getting set, getting citations and commendations if they were good enough, a Department funeral if they stopped a bullet or a switchblade...

There they were. And here am I...

Becky was stirring carefully in the next room. Richard Queen knew it was Becky, not Abe, because Abe was like a Newfoundland dog, incapable of quiet; and the old man had been visiting in the beach house with its papery walls long enough to have learned some intimate details of the Pearls’ lives.

He lay in the bed idly.

Yes, that was Becky creeping down the stairs so as not to wake her husband or their guest. Soon the smell of her coffee, brown and brisk, would come seeping up from the kitchen. Beck Pearl was a small friendly woman with a big chest and fine hands and feet that were always on the move when her husband was around.

On the beach the gulls were squabbling over something.

Inspector Queen tried to think of his own wife. But Ellery’s mother had died over thirty years ago. It was like trying to recall the face of a stranger glimpsed for an instant from the other end of a dark corridor.

Here comes the coffee...

For a while the old man let the drum and swish of the surf wash over him, as if he were lying on the beach below the house.

As if he were the beach, being rhythmically cleaned and emptied by the sea.

What should he do today?

A few miles from where Richard Queen was lying in the bed swam an island. The island was connected to the Connecticut mainland by a private causeway of handsome concrete. A fieldstone gatehouse with wood trim treated to look like bleached driftwood barred the island end of the causeway. This gatehouse was dressed in creeper ivy and climber roses, and it had a brief skirt of garden hemmed in oyster shells. A driftwood shingle above the door said:

Two private policemen in semi-nautical uniforms alternated at the gatehouse in twelve-hour shifts.

Nair Island had six owners, who shared its two hundred-odd acres in roughly equal holdings. In Taugus, the town on the mainland of which the island was an administrative district, their summer retreat was known — in a sort of forelock-tugging derision — as “Million-Nair” Island.

The six millionaires were not clubby. Each estate was partitioned from its neighbors by a high, thick fieldstone wall topped with shells and iron spikes. Each owner had his private yacht basin and fenced-off bathing beach. Each treated the road serving the six estates as if it were his alone. Their annual meetings to transact the trifling business of the community, as required by the bylaws of the Nair Island Association, were brusque affairs, almost hostile. The solder that welded the six owners together was not Christian fellowship but exclusion.

The island was their fortress, and they were mighty people. One was a powerful United States Senator who had gone into politics from high society to protect the American way of life. Another was the octogenarian widow of a railroad magnate. Another was an international banker. A fourth was an aging philanthropist who loved the common people in the mass but could not stand them one by one. His neighbor, commanding the seaward spit of the Island, was a retired Admiral who had married the only daughter of the owner of a vast shipping fleet.

The sixth was Alton K. Humffrey.

Inspector Queen came downstairs shaved and dressed for the day in beige slacks, nylon sports shirt, and tan-and-white shoes. He carried his jacket over his arm.

“Morning.”

The Pearls returned his greeting heartily. Too heartily, he thought.

“You’re so early, Richard.” Becky was pouring her husband’s coffee. She was in a crisp house dress, white and pink. Abe was in his uniform. “And my, all dressed up. I know! You meet a woman on the beach yesterday.”

The old man laughed. “The day a woman messes with me.”

“Don’t give me that. And don’t think Abe isn’t worried, leaving me alone in the house every day with an attractive man.”

“And don’t think I’m not,” Abe Pearl growled. “Squattez-vous, Dick. Sleep all right?”

“All right.” He sat down opposite his friend and accepted a cup of coffee from Beck Pearl gratefully. “Aren’t you up kind of early yourself this morning, Abe?”

“With the summer people coming in, I never know what I’m going to find down at Headquarters. There was trouble at a beach party early this morning — some tanked-up teenagers. Want to sit in, Dick, just for ducks?”

The Inspector shook his head.

“Go on, Richard,” Beck Pearl urged. “You’re bored. Vacations are always that way.”

The old man smiled. “Working people take vacations. Not old discards like me.”

“That’s fine talk! How do you want your eggs this morning?”

“No breakfast, Becky. Thanks a lot.”

The Pearls glanced at each other as the old man raised the cup. Abe Pearl shook his big head slightly.

“Well, Dick, suit yourself,” he said. “I thought it might appeal to you. What do you hear from your son? I noticed you got a letter yesterday.”

“Ellery’s fine. He’s in Rome now. Thinking of visiting Israel next.”

“Why didn’t you go with him?” Mrs. Pearl asked. “Or weren’t you invited?” Her two sons were married, and she had definite ideas about what was wrong with the younger generation.

“Invited? Ellery begged me to go. But I didn’t feel it would be right. He’s roaming around Europe looking for story ideas, and I’d only be in his way.”

“He wasn’t fooled by that poppycock, I hope,” Beck Pearl snorted.

“He wanted to cancel his trip,” Richard Queen said quietly. “He only went because you and Abe were kind enough to ask me up here for the summer.”

“Well! I should think so.”

Abe Pearl rose. “You’re sure you won’t sit in, Dick?”

“I thought I’d do a little exploring today, Abe. Maybe take your boat out, if you don’t mind.”

“Mind!” Abe Pearl glared down at him. “What kind of dribble is that?” He kissed his wife fiercely and pounded out, making the dishes on the sideboard jingle.

Through the window Inspector Queen watched his host back the black-and-white coupé with the roof searchlight out of the garage. For a moment the sun sparkled on the big man’s cap with the gold shield above the visor. Then, with a wave, Abe Pearl was gone.

With his ability and popularity, the old man thought, he can hold down this Chief’s job in Taugus for life. Abe used his head. He got out of the big time when he was still young enough to set up a new career for himself. He isn’t much younger than I am, and look at him.

“Feeling sorry for yourself again, Richard?” Beck Pearl’s womanly voice said.

He turned, reddening.

“We all have to adjust to something,” she went on in her soft way. “After all, it isn’t as if you were like Abe’s older brother Joe. Joe never had an education, never got married. All he knew was work. He worked all his life on a machine, and when he got too old and sick to work any more he had nothing — no family, no savings, nothing but the few dollars he gets from the government, and the check Abe sends him every month. There’s millions like Joe, Richard. You’re in good health, you have a successful son, you’ve led an interesting life, you’ve got a pension, no worries about the future — who’s better off, you or Joe Pearl?”

He grinned. “Let’s give Abe something to be jealous about.” And he got up and kissed his friend’s wife tenderly.

“Richard! You devil.” Becky was blushing.

“Old, am I? Bring on those eggs — sunnyside, and don’t burn the bacon!”

But the lift was feeble. When he left the house and headed for Abe Pearl’s second-hand sixteen-foot cruiser, the old man’s heart was bitter again. Every man tasted his own brand of misery. You needed more than a successful past and a secure future. Becky had left one thing out, the most important thing.

A man needed the present. Something to do.

The engine coughed its way into the basin and expired just as the sixteen-footer slid alongside the dock. Richard Queen tied up to a bollard, frowning, and looked around. The dock was deserted, and there was no one on the beach but a buxom woman in a nurse’s nylon uniform reading a magazine on the sand beside a net-covered perambulator.

The old man waved. “Ahoy, there!”

The nurse looked up, startled.

“Could I possibly buy some gas here?” he bellowed.

The woman shook her head vigorously and pointed to the pram. He walked down to the beach end of the dock and made his way across the sand toward her. It was beautiful sand, clean as a laundered tablecloth, and he had the uneasy feeling that he should not be making tracks in it.

“I’m sorry,” he said, taking off his hat. “Did I wake the baby?”

The nurse was stooping over the carriage intently. She straightened up, smiling.

“No harm done. He sleeps like a little top.”

Richard Queen thought he had never seen a nicer smile. She was big and wholesome-looking; her pretty nose was peeling from sunburn. Close to fifty, he judged, but only because he had had long experience in such matters. To the amateur eye she would pass for forty.

She drew him off from the pram a little way. “Did you say you were out of gas?”

“Forgot to check the tank before I shoved off. It’s not my boat,” he said apologetically, “and I’m afraid I’m not much of a sailor. I just about made it to your dock when I saw your pump.”

“You’re a trespasser,” she said with her crinkly smile. “This is private property.”

“Nair Island,” he nodded. “But I’m desperate. Would you allow me to buy some juice for that contraption?”

“You’d have to ask Mr. Humffrey, the owner, but I’m sure it wouldn’t do you any good. He’d like as not call the Taugus police.”

“Is he home?” The old man grinned at the picture of Abe Pearl running over to Nair Island to arrest him.

“No.” She laughed. “They’ve taken the cabin cruiser down to Larchmont to watch some yacht racing. Mrs. Humffrey hasn’t stuck her nose out of the house since the baby came.”

“Then if I helped myself nobody would know?”

“I’d know,” she retorted.

“Let me take a few gallons. I’ll send Mr. Humffrey a check.”

“You’ll get me in trouble...”

“I won’t even mention your name,” he said solemnly. “By the way, what is it?”

“Sherwood. Jessie Sherwood.”

“My name is Richard Queen, Mrs. Sherwood.”

“Miss Sherwood, Mr. Queen.”

“Oh,” he said. “Glad to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Nurse Sherwood murmured.

For some absurd reason they both smiled. The sun on the old man felt good. The blue sky, the sparks flying off the water, the salt breeze, everything felt good.

“I really don’t have any place to go, Miss Sherwood,” he said. “Why don’t we sit down and visit?”

The crinkles went out of her smile. “If it got back to Mr. and Mrs. Humffrey that I’d entertained a strange man on the beach while I was minding the baby they’d discharge me, and they’d be perfectly right. And I’ve got awfully attached to little Michael. I’m afraid I can’t, Mr. Queen.”

Nice, he thought. Nice woman.

“Of course,” he said. “It’s my fault. But I thought... You see, I’m an old friend of Chief of Police Pearl’s of Taugus. In fact, I’m spending the summer with him and Mrs. Pearl in their shack on the beach.”

“Well!” she said. “I’m sure Mr. Humffrey wouldn’t mind that. It’s just that they’re so nervous about the baby.”

“Their first?”

“Well, yes.”

“They’re smart. Parents can’t be too careful about their children, especially if they’re rich.”

“The Humffreys are multimillionaires.”

“Chief Pearl tells me they’re all loaded on Nair Island. I remember a snatch case I investigated a few years ago—”

“Case? Are you a police officer, too, Mr. Queen?”

“Was,” he said. “In New York. But they retired me.”

“Retired you! At your age?”

He looked at her. “How old do you think I am?”

“About fifty-five.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“I never just say things. Why, are you older?”

“I quote Section 434-a dash two one point 0 of the Administrative Code of the City of New York,” he said grimly, “which states as follows: ‘No member of the police force in the department except surgeons of police,’ etcetera, ‘who is or hereafter attains the age of 63 years shall continue to serve as a member of such force but shall be retired and placed on the pension rolls of the department.’” He added after a moment, “You see, I know it by heart.”

“Sixty-three.” She looked skeptical.

“My last birthday.”

“I wouldn’t have believed it,” she murmured.

From the depths of the pram came a squawk. Nurse Sherwood hurried to its source, and he followed. He could not helping taking in the curve of her hips, the youthful shoulders, the pretty legs and ankles.

It was just a cry in the baby’s sleep. “He’ll be waking up for his feeding soon,” she said softly, fussing with the netting. “Is your wife visiting with Chief and Mrs. Pearl, too?”

Strong hands.

“I’ve been a widower almost as long as you’re old, Miss Sherwood.”

“That’s impossible!” She laughed. “How old do you think I am?”

“Thirty-nine, forty,” he lied.

“Aren’t you sweet! I’ll be fifty in January. Why, I’ve been an R.N. for almost twenty-five years.”

“Oh, you’re a trained nurse. Is this a sick baby?”

“Heavens, no. He’s a sturdy little monkey.”

He was, too. He had chubby arms and legs, a formidable little chest, and fat cheeks. He was sleeping with his arms defending his head in a curious attitude of defiance and helplessness; his silky brows were bunched in a troubled way. Richard Queen thought, They look so... so... He could not think of the word. Some feelings there were no words for. He was surprised to find that he still had them.

“It’s just that Mrs. Humffrey is so nervous,” Jessie Sherwood was saying. “She won’t trust an ordinary nursemaid. And I’ve been a pediatric and maternity nurse practically my entire career. Ordinarily I wouldn’t take a case like this — a perfectly healthy baby — I could be taking care of someone who really needs me. But I’ve rather overdone it the past few years, and Mr. Humffrey’s offer was so generous—”

She stopped abruptly. Why was she telling all this to a perfect stranger? She was appalled.

“Never married?” the old man asked casually.

“Beg pardon? Oh, you mean me.” Her face changed. “I was engaged once. During the war.”

It was her eyes that were crinkled now, but not with laughter.

“He was a doctor,” she explained. “He was killed in Normandy.”

The old man nodded. They stood over the carriage side by side, looking through the netting at the tiny sleeping face.

What am I thinking of? he thought. A vigorous, attractive woman... and what am I but a withering old fool?

He fumbled with the button of his jacket. “I can’t tell you how nice it’s been talking to you, Miss Sherwood.”

She looked up quickly. “You’re going?”

“Well, I’d better lift some of Mr. Humffrey’s gas and start back. Becky — Mrs. Pearl — will be having fits if I don’t show up for lunch. She’s been trying to put some meat on my bones.”

“I don’t see why,” Jessie Sherwood said warmly. “I think you’re built beautifully for—”

“For a man my age?” He smiled. “I hope we meet again some time.”

“Yes,” she said in a low voice. “I don’t know a soul here. On Thursdays I go crazy. That’s my day off—”

But he merely said, “I know what you mean. Well.” His smile was fixed. “Good-by, Miss Sherwood. And thanks. I’ll mail Mr. Humffrey a check tonight.”

“Good-by,” Jessie Sherwood said.

He did not even wave to her as he pulled away from the dock.

Independence Day was a Monday, and it developed into the noisiest Fourth Nurse Sherwood could remember. In spite of the ban on their sale, fireworks crackled, hissed, swooshed, and screeched into the skies over Nair Island all day.

The continuous barrage had made little Michael fret and wail, and his displeasure infected the household. Mrs. Humffrey wrung her hands and hovered all day; Mrs. Charbedeau, the cook, overdid the roast and exchanged bickering sarcasms with Mrs. Lenihan, the housekeeper; Mrs. Lenihan snapped the head off Rose Healy, the upstairs maid, and reduced Marie Tompkins, the downstairs maid, to the sullen verge of Notice. Even old Stallings, the gardener, ordinarily the most unaffected of men, threatened wrathfully to bust Henry Cullum in the snoot if the chauffeur ever again backed a car five feet onto his lawn in the poorly planned apron behind the Humffrey garage.

Alton Humffrey was annoyed. The Island’s one road was as crowded all day as Front Street in Taugus; the surrounding waters splashed and spluttered well into the evening with hundreds of holiday craft from the mainland; and Cullum had to be delegated to stand guard on the Humffrey beach to chase trespassing picnickers away.

Worst of all, Ronald Frost made a scene. Frost was Humffrey’s nephew, the only child of the millionaire’s dead sister. He lived on a small income from his mother’s estate, spending most of his time as a house guest of his numerous socialite friends, making a partner for an odd girl or teaching someone’s cousin to play tennis.

The young man had come up to spend the weekend, along with some relatives of Sarah Humffrey’s from Andover, Maiden and Cambridge; and whereas the Stiles clan, all elderly people, had sensibly left on Sunday night to get the jump on the northbound traffic, Ronald Frost lingered well into Independence Day. What the attraction was Jessie Sherwood failed at first to see, unless it was his uncle’s liquor cabinet; certainly he made no secret of his boredom, and his visits to the cabinet were frequent.

Ron was a younger edition of his mother’s brother — tall, thin, shoulderless, with lifeless brown hair and slightly popping eyes. But he had an unpleasant smile, half unction, half contempt; and he treated servants vilely.

Jessie Sherwood heard the row from the nursery that afternoon while she was changing the baby; Alton Humffrey’s upstairs study was across the hall. Apparently Ron Frost was mired in a financial slough and expected his uncle to pull him out.

“I’m afraid, Ronald, you’ll have to look for relief elsewhere this time,” Jessie heard the older man say in his chill, nasal voice.

“What?” Young Frost was astounded.

“This avenue is closed to you.”

“You don’t mean it!”

“Never more serious in my life.”

“But Uncle Alton, I’m in a rotten jam.”

“If you must get into jams, it’s time you learned to get out of them by your own efforts.”

“I don’t believe it.” Frost was dazed. “Why, you’ve never turned me down before. And I’m in the damnedest spot just now... What’s the idea, Uncle? Don’t tell me you’re in a pecuniary pickle.”

“I don’t get into pecuniary pickles, Ronald.” Jessie Sherwood could almost see Alton Humffrey’s glacial smile. “I take it this request was the real purpose of your visit, so—”

“Wait a minute.” Ron Frost’s tone was ugly now. “I want clarification. Is this a peeve of the moment because your precious castle has been fouled up all day by the common people, or is it a permanent freeze-out?”

“Translated into English,” his uncle said, “you’re apparently inquiring whether this is a whim or a policy. It’s a policy, Ronald. I find now that I have a better use for my money than to pay your gambling debts and enlarge the bank accounts of your heartbroken lady-friends.”

“The brat,” mumbled Frost.

“I beg your pardon?”

“This mongrel you picked up somewhere—”

“You’re drunk,” Alton Humffrey said.

“Not so drunk I can’t put two and two together! All your wormy talk about the Humffrey blood — the family name — the promises you made my mother—!”

“You have an obligation, too,” his uncle snapped. “Principally, to stop following the life cycle of a sponge. By the way, you’ll apologize for the disgusting manner in which you’ve just referred to my son.”

“Your son!” shouted Frost. “What is he if he isn’t a mongrel?”

“Get out.”

“Can’t stand the truth, hey? You gave me every reason to expect I’d be your heir, not some puking little—”

“So help me God, Ronald,” Alton Humffrey’s voice said clearly, “if you don’t leave at once I’ll throw you down the stairs.”

There was a silence.

Then Jessie Sherwood heard young Frost say with a nervous laugh, “I’m sorry, Uncle. I guess I am tight. I apologize, of course.”

There was another silence.

“Very well,” Humffrey said. “And now I take it you’re about to leave?”

“Right, right,” Ron Frost said.

She heard him stagger up the hall. A few minutes later his footsteps returned and stopped in the study doorway.

“Please say good-by and thanks to Aunt Sarah for me, Uncle. Under the circumstances—”

“I understand.” The Humffrey voice sounded remote.

“Well... so long, Uncle Alton.”

“Good-by, Ronald.”

“I’ll be seeing you and Aunt Sarah soon, I hope.”

There was no reply.

Young Frost stumbled down the stairs. Shortly after, Jessie heard his Jaguar roar away.

So the day was intolerable, and she sank into bed thankfully that night, punched her pillow, murmured her nightly prayer, and sought sleep.

At two in the morning she was still seeking.

Nair Island had long ago settled down to silence and to darkness. The rustle of surf that soothed her every night was the only sound she could hear, except for an occasional late guest’s car leaving the Island; but tonight its rhythm seemed to clash with her pulse rate. Everyone in the house was asleep; the two rooms above the garage, where Stallings and Cullum had their quarters, had been dark for hours. Her bedroom was not even hot; a cool breeze had swept in from sea at eleven, and she had had to get up for a quilt.

Then why couldn’t she sleep?

It was a nuisance, because usually she fell asleep at will. She had always had the gift of instant relaxation. It was one of her assets as a nurse.

It certainly wasn’t the baby. Jessie had been a little concerned about his behavior during the day, but with bedtime he had become his healthy little self again, and he had finished his bottle, bubbled mightily, and fallen asleep like an angel. When she had checked him before turning in, his tiny face was serene and he was breathing with such untroubled lightness that she had actually stooped over his crib. Nor was it an imminent feeding that was keeping her wakeful; little Michael had broken himself of his 2 a.m. bottle ten days before, and he had slept peacefully through every night since.

It was the whole disagreeable day, Jessie decided — the fireworks, the general confusion, Mrs. Humffrey’s flapping about, the tension in the household climaxed by the row between uncle and nephew. And perhaps — she felt her cheeks tingle — perhaps it had something to do with that man Richard Queen.

Jessie had to admit that she had been acting like a moony teenager ever since their meeting on the Humffrey beach. Thinking about a man of sixty-three! Hinting to him about Thursday being her day off... The burn in her cheeks smarted. She had even gone over to the public beach in Taugus on her next day off and sat on the sand under a rented beach umbrella all afternoon, hoping against hope and feeling silly at the same time. What if he had shown up? Her figure in a bathing suit wasn’t bad for her age, but she could hardly compete with those skinny brown three-quarters-naked young hussies flitting about the beach. So she had left that day relieved, angry at herself, and yet disappointed. He’d seemed so nice, so youthful-looking, and so troubled about his age and his retirement... Of course, he had stayed away. He must know plenty about women, having been a police officer all his life. Probably put her down right off as a coy old maid on the prowl for a victim.

Still, it was a pity. They could have found lots to talk about. Some of her more interesting cases, people of note she had nursed. And he must have had hundreds of exciting experiences. And actually she hadn’t looked half bad in her bathing suit. She had studied herself in the bathroom mirror very critically before making up her mind to go that day. At least she had some flesh on her bones. And her skin was really remarkably unlined for a woman of forty-nine. How old was Marlene Dietrich...?

Jessie Sherwood heaved over and buried her face in the pillow.

And in the silence that followed the groan of the bed she heard a sound that drove all other thoughts from her head.

It was the sound of a window being opened in the nursery.

She lay stiffly, listening.

The nursery was at the rear of the house, a corner room with two windows. One overlooked the driveway and gardens at the side, the other faced the sea. At the baby’s bedtime she had opened both windows wide, but when the breeze came up and she had had to get a quilt for herself, she had gone into the nursery to tuck an extra satin throw around the baby and shut the seaward window. The temperature had dropped so low that she had even removed the screen and pulled the driveway window most of the way down, leaving it open no more than three or four inches.

It seemed to her the sound had come from the driveway window.

There it was again.

Again!

They were short, soft, scrapy sounds, as if the window were being opened an inch or two at a time, little secretive upward nudges, with listening pauses between.

“Parents can’t be too careful about their children, especially if they’re rich...”

He had said that.

“A snatch case I investigated a few years...”

A kidnaper!

With a leap Jessie Sherwood was out of bed. She grabbed her robe, flung it over her cotton nightgown, and dashed through the communicating doorway into little Michael’s room.

In the faint glow of the baseboard nightlight she saw a man. He had one leg over the sill of the driveway window. The other was apparently braced against the top rung of a ladder. His head was cut off at the neck by the half-raised venetian blind. He was all flat and colorless. It was like seeing a lifesized cutout made of black paper.

Nurse Sherwood yelled and sprang to the crib. The figure in the window disappeared.

There was a great deal of confusion after that. Mr. Humffrey ran in buttoning his pajama coat over his gaunt, furry torso; Mrs. Humffrey flew by him, shrieking, to tear the baby from his nurse’s arms; Mrs. Lenihan, Mrs. Charbedeau, the two maids thronged the stairway from the third floor, pulling on assorted negligees and gasping questions; and the men’s quarters over the garage lit up. The baby wailed louder, Mrs. Humffrey shrieked harder, Mr. Humffrey roared demands for an explanation, and through the bedlam Jessie Sherwood tried to make herself heard. When she was finally able to communicate, and Alton Humffrey thrust his head out the window, the driveway was empty except for old Stallings and Henry Cullum, in pajamas and barefoot, looking up and asking wildly what was the matter.

A long ladder was leaning against the window.

“Search the grounds,” Alton Humffrey shouted to the two white-haired men below. “I’ll phone the gatehouse.”

When he came back he was fuming. “I don’t know what we pay those guards for. Either that imbecile Peterson was asleep or he’s drunk. Sarah, stop that, please. Give Michael to Miss Sherwood. You’re frightening him half to death.”

“Oh, Alton, suppose it was a kidnaper,” Sarah Humffrey said hysterically.

“Nonsense. It was some housebreaker, and Miss Sherwood scared him off. Here, let me have him.”

“I’ll take him, Mr. Humffrey,” Jessie Sherwood said. “Mrs. Lenihan, would you get me a bottle of formula from the refrigerator? I think, darlin’, we’ll make an exception tonight. But first let’s change this diaper...” She took the baby into the nursery bathroom and firmly shut the door.

When she came out with him, Alton Humffrey was alone in the nursery watching the bottle in the electric warmer.

“Is Michael all right?” he asked abruptly.

“He’s fine, Mr. Humffrey.”

“You’re sure it was a man?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Nothing familiar about him?” His tone was odd.

“I really can’t say,” Jessie said quietly. “I didn’t see his face at all, and the rest of him was just a black silhouette against the moonlight. Mr. Humffrey, I don’t think it was a housebreaker.”

“You don’t?” He glanced at her sharply.

“Why should a housebreaker try to enter through an upper window? The windows aren’t locked downstairs.”

Alton Humffrey did not reply. Jessie took the bottle from the warmer, sat down in the rocker, and began to feed the baby.

“Mr. Humffrey?” It was Cullum, from below.

Humffrey strode to the window. “Yes?”

“No sign of a soul,” the chauffeur said. Stallings, beside him, nodded.

“You two had better get some clothes on and stay out there for a while.” He put the nursery screen with the animal cutouts on it before the window. Jessie noticed how careful he was not to touch the window.

When he turned back his brow was all knots.

“Don’t you think you’d better call the police, Mr. Humffrey?” Jessie murmured.

“Yes,” he said.

The telephone rang on the other side of the flimsy wall and the old man was instantly awake. He heard Abe Pearl’s sleepy growl say, “Yes?” and then, not sleepily at all, “I’ll go right over. Have Tinny and Borcher meet me there.”

When Chief Pearl let himself out of his bedroom, there was the old man in the hall in his robe, waiting.

“Dick. What are you doing up?”

“I heard the phone, Abe. Trouble?”

“Something funny over on Nair Island,” the big man grunted. “Maybe you’d like to sit in on it.”

“Nair Island,” Richard Queen said. “What kind of trouble?”

“Somebody tried to break into one of those millionaires’ homes. Kid’s nursery. Might be a snatch try.”

“It wouldn’t be at the Humffreys’, would it?”

“That’s right.” Abe Pearl stared.

“Anybody hurt?”

“No, he was scared off. But how did you know, Dick?”

“I’ll be with you in three minutes.”

The Humffrey house was lit up. They found one of Abe Pearl’s men examining the ladder in the driveway and another in the nursery talking to Humffrey and the nurse. The screen was around the crib now, and Sarah Humffrey was in the rocker, gnawing her lips but quieted down.

The old man and Jessie Sherwood glanced at each other once, then looked away. He remained in the background, listening, looking around. Her color was high, and she drew her robe more closely about her. It would have to be the cotton nightgown tonight! she thought. Why didn’t I wash out the orlon?

When they had repeated their stories, Chief Pearl went to the window.

“Is that your ladder, Mr. Humffrey?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it usually kept?”

“In the tool shed where Stallings, my gardener, keeps his equipment.”

“Take a look, Borcher.”

The detective went out.

Abe Pearl turned to Jessie. “This man,” he said. “Would you know him if you saw him again, Miss Sherwood?”

“I doubt it.”

“He didn’t say anything? Make any sound?”

“I didn’t hear anything but the window being slid up little by little. When I ran in he disappeared.”

“Did you hear a car?”

“No. I mean, I don’t recall.”

“Did you or didn’t you?”

Jessie felt herself growing hot. “I tell you I don’t know!”

“That’s all right,” Chief Pearl said. “People get excited.” He turned his back on her, and Richard Queen blinked. He knew what his friend was thinking: Tag the nurse as a possible question mark. Of course, Abe didn’t know her. He was surprised to find himself thinking of her as if he had known her for a long time. “Did you hear a car drive away, Mr. Humffrey?”

“I can’t say. There was a great deal of noise here, naturally, after Miss Sherwood screamed.”

Abe Pearl nodded. “The chances are, if he came in a car, he parked on the road off your grounds. You didn’t find a note of any kind, did you?”

“No.”

Sarah Humffrey whispered, “Note?”

Her husband said sharply, “Sarah, don’t you think you’d better go to bed?”

“No, Alton, no, please. I couldn’t sleep now, anyway. I’m all right, dear.”

“Sure she is, Mr. Humffrey. Think you can answer a few questions, Mrs. Humffrey?” The chief’s tone was deferential.

“Yes. But I can’t tell you anything—”

“About your servants, I mean.”

“The servants?” Sarah Humffrey repeated.

“Just a matter of form, Mrs. Humffrey. You never know in cases like this. How many you got, and how long they been with you?”

“Our housekeeper, Mrs. Lenihan, has been with us since our marriage,” Sarah Humffrey said. “Mrs. Charbedeau, the cook, has worked for us almost ten years. Rose Healy and Marie Tompkins, the maids, are Boston girls who have been with us for a number of years.”

“How about those two old fellows out there?”

“Stallings, the gardener,” Alton Humffrey said, “is a local man, but we’ve employed him since we purchased this property. He stays on as caretaker during the winters. Henry Cullum, the chauffeur, drove for my father as a young man. I’ll vouch for both of them. For that matter, for the women, too. We’re very careful about our servants, Mr. Pearl.”

“How about Miss Sherwood?” Chief Pearl asked casually.

Jessie said, “I resent that!”

“Miss Sherwood has been with us only since a week or so before the baby came. However, she was highly recommended both by Dr. Holliday of Greenwich, our pediatrician, and Dr. Wicks of Taugus, who is our family physician during the summers.”

“Check her references, Mr. Humffrey?”

“Very thoroughly indeed.”

“I’ve been a registered nurse for twenty-three years,” Jessie Sherwood snapped, “and I’ve taken an awful lot in my time, but this is the limit. If I’d been in cahoots with some psychopath to kidnap this darling baby, do you think I’d have let out a yell and chased him away?”

Chief Pearl said mildly, “Just getting the picture,” and went out.

Inspector Queen said to nobody in particular, “Don’t blame the chief. It’s his job.”

Nurse Sherwood tossed her head.

When Abe Pearl came back he said to Humffrey, “There’s dust on the ladder. We might get some prints. Miss Sherwood, I suppose you can’t say whether the man you saw was wearing anything on his hands?”

“I can’t say,” Jessie replied shortly.

“Well, there’s nothing else we can do tonight, Mr. Humffrey. Personally, I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about. But if you want me to leave a man, I’ll leave one.”

“I wish you would,” Alton Humffrey said slowly. “And, Mr. Pearl...”

“Yes, sir?”

“I don’t want any publicity about this.”

“I’ll see that the boys over at Headquarters keep quiet about it. Dick?” The chief glanced at his friend.

“One thing.” Richard Queen stepped forward. “If you don’t mind my asking, Mr. Humffrey — is this your own child?”

Sarah Humffrey started. Alton Humffrey looked at the old man almost for the first time.

“No offense,” Inspector Queen went on, “but you told Chief Pearl you have no other children. It struck me you people are a little on in years to be having a first baby.”

“Is this one of your men, Chief?” the millionaire demanded.

“Inspector Queen of the New York police department, retired,” Abe Pearl said quickly. “He was my lieutenant when I pounded a Manhattan beat, Mr. Humffrey. He’s visiting me for the summer.”

“The man who sent me a check for a dollar and fifty cents,” Alton Humffrey said. “Are you in the habit of helping yourself to other people’s gasoline, sir?”

“I explained that in my note.”

“Yes. Well, Inspector, I don’t see the relevance of your question.”

“You haven’t answered it,” Richard Queen smiled.

“Michael is an adopted child. Why?”

“There might be something in his background to explain this, Mr. Humffrey, that’s all.”

“I assure you that’s quite impossible.” The millionaire’s tone was frigid. “If there’s nothing else, gentlemen, will you excuse Mrs. Humffrey and me?”

Jessie Sherwood wondered if Chief Pearl’s friend was going to say anything to her before he left.

But he merely glanced politely in her direction and followed the chief out.

Tuesday evening after dinner, Jessie Sherwood went upstairs, peeped in at the baby, changed into a cool blue summer cotton, tidied her hair, powdered her nose, and slipped out of the house.

Jessie wondered as she sauntered down the driveway what the Humffreys talked about when they were alone. They were on the terrace now, sipping cherry brandy and staring silently to sea. In company they were articulate enough — Mrs. Humffrey was a positive chatterbox, of the corded-neck variety, while her husband had a caustic volubility — but Jessie had come upon them dozens of times alone together, and not once had she interrupted a conversation. They were strange people, she thought.

And jumped. A man had stepped suddenly from behind a tall clump of mountain laurel at the driveway entrance and flashed a light on her face.

“Oh. Sorry, Miss Sherwood.”

“It’s all right,” Jessie said untruthfully, and strolled into the road. He was the second of the three guards hired by Alton Humffrey early that morning from a private detective agency in Bridgeport. They were rock-faced men who turned up and disappeared like alley cats.

When she rounded the curve in the road she began to walk fast. The air was salty sweet from the sea breeze and flowering gardens; and the road lights, great wrought-iron affairs shaped like sailing-ship lanterns, were besieged by platoons of moths and beetles cheerfully banging away. It was all very peaceful and lovely, but Jessie hurried on.

The gate was across the road at the Island end of the causeway.

“Mr. Peterson?”

The big private guard loomed in the gatehouse doorway.

“You walking across?” His voice was sulky.

“No, I’m just out for some air. What’s the matter, Mr. Peterson? You sound sour on the world.”

“You’d think I’d had a picnic this weekend,” the guard grumbled, unbending. “You know how many cars came through here last night? And then they want me to remember who went in and out!”

“That’s a shame,” Jessie said sympathetically. “With all that outbound traffic, I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d simply left the gate open all night.”

“That’s what I did, Miss Sherwood.”

“Even at two in the morning, I suppose.”

“Sure. Why not? How was I to know?”

“Well, of course. And by that time you must have been darn tired. Were you sitting in the gatehouse, resting?”

“I’ll say!”

“So of course you didn’t see the car that drove in some time after midnight and left around 2 a.m.”

Peterson scowled. “I saw the back of it.”

Jessie drew a long breath in the perfumed moonlight. “I’ll bet it was a car you knew, and that’s why you didn’t stop him.”

“Something like that. I didn’t see his face, but him and the car looked familiar.”

“What kind of car was it, Mr. Peterson?”

“Foreign job. A Jaguar.”

“I see.” Jessie’s heart was beating faster.

“Like the one run by Mr. Humffrey’s nephew — what’s-his-name — Mr. Frost. Matter of fact,” the guard said, “I thought it was Frost. He’d been off and on the Island all weekend.”

“Oh, then you’re not sure.”

The guard said uncomfortably, “I can’t swear to it.”

“Well.” Jessie smiled at him. “Don’t you worry about it, Mr. Peterson. I’m sure you do your job as well as anyone could expect.”

“You can say that again!”

“Good night.”

“Good night, Miss Sherwood,” Peterson said warmly.

He went back into the gatehouse, and Jessie began to retrace her steps, frowning.

“Nice going,” a man’s voice said.

Jessie’s heart flopped. But then she saw who it was.

“Mr. Queen,” she cried. “What are you doing here?”

He was in the roadway before her, spare and neat in a Palm Beach suit, looking amused.

“Same thing you are, only I beat you to it. Playing detective, Miss Sherwood?” He chuckled and took her arm. “Suppose I walk you back.”

Jessie nodded a little stiffly, and they began to stroll along beside high fieldstone walls clothed in ivy and rambler roses, with the moon like a cheddar cheese overhead and the salty sweet air in their nostrils. How long is it, she wondered, since I last took a moonlight stroll with a man holding my arm? The last one had been Clem, on leave before shipping out...

The old man said suddenly, “Did you suspect Ron Frost all along?”

“Why are you so interested?” Jessie murmured.

“Let’s say I don’t like cases involving nursery windows.” He sounded gruff. “And if I can lend a hand to Abe Pearl...”

Some tireless patriot out at sea sent up a Roman candle. They stopped to watch the burst and drip of fireballs. For a few seconds the Island brightened. Then the darkness closed in again.

She felt his restless movement. It was like a dash of cold sea.

“I’d better be getting back,” Jessie said matter-of-factly, and they walked on. “About your question, Mr. Queen. I suppose I shouldn’t be saying this while I’m taking the Humffreys’ money, but I like threats to babies even less than you do. Ronald Frost quarreled with Mr. Humffrey over Michael yesterday.” And she told him what she had overheard from the nursery.

“So Frost expected to be his uncle’s heir, and now he figures the baby’s queered his act,” Richard Queen said thoughtfully. “And Frost was tanked up when he left, you say?”

“Well, he’d had quite a bit to drink.”

“He was nursing a beaut of a hangover this morning, and there was an empty bourbon bottle on his bureau. So he must have worked himself up to a real charge by late last night. Could be...”

“You saw him?” Jessie exclaimed.

“I dropped over to his place in Old Greenwich. Sort of as a favor to Abe Pearl.”

“What did Frost say? Tell me!”

“He said he came straight home last night and went to bed. He lives alone, so no one saw him. In other words, no alibi.”

“But did he actually deny having driven back here?”

“Would you expect him to admit it?” She knew he was smiling in the darkness. “Anyway, he’s had a good scare — I’ll guarantee that. If Frost was the man who tried to climb in through that window, I don’t think he’ll try it again.”

“But what could he have been thinking of?” Jessie shivered.

“Drunks don’t make much sense.”

“You think... ransom? He told Mr. Humffrey he was badly in debt.”

“I don’t think anything,” the Inspector said. “Whoever it was wore gloves — there wasn’t an unaccounted-for print anywhere in the nursery or shed, and smudges were evident on the ladder. We have nothing on Frost but a questionable identification by Peterson. Even if we had, I doubt if Mr. Humffrey would press a charge, from the way he talked to Abe Pearl on the phone today. The best thing for you to do is forget last night ever happened, young lady.”

“Thank you.” Jessie felt herself dimpling, and it made her add tartly, “Young lady!”

He seemed surprised. “But you are young. Some people never age. My mother was one of them. You’re very much like her—” He stopped. Then he said, “This is it, isn’t it? It’s so blasted dark—”

“Yes.” Jessie hoped fiercely that the guard from the Bridgeport detective agency would have the decency to remain behind his bush and keep his finger off the flashlight button. “You were saying, Mr. Queen?”

“It wasn’t anything.”

There was a silence.

“Well,” Jessie said. “I must say you’ve relieved my mind, Inspector. And thanks for walking me back.”

“It was my pleasure.” But from the way he said it, it sounded more like a sadness. “Well, good night, Miss Sherwood.”

“Good night,” Jessie said emptily.

She was standing there in the dark, listening to his footfalls retreat and wondering if she would ever see him again, when the light suddenly blinded her.

“Who was that with you, Miss Sherwood?” the private detective said.

“Oh, go away, you — you beagle!” Nurse Sherwood said, and she ran up the driveway as if someone were after her.

So that seemed the end of a promising friendship. The weeks went by, and although during little Michael’s nap times on the Humffrey beach Jessie kept glancing up at passing small craft, or on her Thursdays off found herself scanning the crowds on Front Street or the Taugus public beach, she did not catch even a glimpse of that wiry figure again.

What children men are! she thought angrily.

If not for the baby, she would have given notice and quit Nair Island. She was desperately lonely. But little Michael needed her, she kept telling herself, trying not to feel the old jealous twinge when Mrs. Humffrey took him from her arms and exercised her proprietary rights.

Sometimes Jessie thought she ought to leave for the baby’s sake, before he became too attached to her. But she kept putting it off. In the gloom that had suddenly set in, he was the only sunny thing. Besides, she told herself, there was always that disturbing incident of the night of July 4th. Suppose the attempt should be repeated and she weren’t there to protect him?

So the weeks passed, and July drew to a close, and nothing happened. On the 31st, almost four weeks to the day from the date of the nursery incident, Alton Humffrey dismissed the three private detectives.

The following Thursday morning Jessie bathed and dressed the baby, fed him his gruel and bottle, and turned him over to Sarah Humffrey.

“You’re sure you’re up to it?” Jessie asked her anxiously. Mrs. Humffrey was sniffling with a slight summer cold. “I’ll gladly forgo my day off. I can make it up some other time.”

“Oh, no.” Mrs. Humffrey peered at Michael through her white mask. Jessie privately wished she wouldn’t insist on wearing a mask at the least provocation; the baby didn’t like it. Besides, Jessie held the unprofessional view that the more an infant was shielded from common germ and virus infections in his early months, when he still had certain immunities, the more susceptible he became later. But Mrs. Humffrey went by the book, or rather by the books; she had a shelf full of them over her bed. “It’s not the least bit necessary, Miss Sherwood. It’s just a little head cold. We’ll be fine without Nursey, love, won’t we?”

“Maybe I’d better plan on coming back tonight, though,” Jessie said, setting herself for squalls. Michael was staring up at the white mask with apprehension, and his little mouth was beginning to droop at the corners.

“I won’t hear of it.” Mrs. Humffrey took this moment to tickle his abdomen. “Kitchy-kitchy! Come on, darling, laugh.”

“I really wouldn’t mind,” Jessie said, choking back a sharp command to stop. Michael solved the problem by throwing up and howling. Mrs. Humffrey guiltily backed off. “It’s nothing,” Jessie said, taking him. “It’s just not a very good idea to tickle an infant, especially on a full stomach.” She burped him, cleaned him up, and handed him back.

“Oh, dear,” Sarah Humffrey said. “There’s so much I have to learn.”

“Not so much,” Jessie couldn’t help saying. “It’s really only a matter of common sense, Mrs. Humffrey. I do think I’ll come back tonight.”

“I absolutely forbid you. I know how you’ve looked forward to a night in town...”

In the end Jessie was persuaded. Driving her sturdy little 1949 Dodge coupé, she told herself all the way to the railroad station that she really must stop being so possessive. It would do Mrs. Humffrey good to have to care for her baby around the clock. Women had no business turning their children over to someone else. But if they were that kind — and it seemed to Jessie that she rarely encountered any other kind — the more responsibility that was forced on them the better off they and the children were.

Still, Jessie was uneasy all day. It rather spoiled the good time she had planned. She met an old friend, Belle Berman, a supervisor of nurses at a New York hospital; and although they shopped at Saks’s, had lunch in a winy-smelling restaurant on 45th Street with French travel posters on the walls, and took in a matinée, Jessie found her thoughts going back to Nair Island and the unhappy little face on the bathinette.

They had dinner in Belle Berman’s apartment on West 11th Street. All during the meal Jessie kept glancing at her watch.

“What is the matter with you?” her friend demanded as she began to collect the dishes. “Anyone would think you’d left a dying patient.”

“I’m sorry, Belle, but I’m worried about the baby. Mrs. Humffrey does have a cold, and if she starts moaning and pampering herself... Besides, she’s so helpless about the simplest things.”

“Heavens, Jessie,” Belle Berman exclaimed. “Is there anything more indestructible than an infant? Anyway, it will do the woman good. These rich mothers! Now you stop this foolishness — no, I’ll wash the dishes, and you’re going to sit on your fanny and talk to me. By the way, how do you keep your figure? You eat like a horse!”

Belle Berman had a few friends in after dinner, and Jessie tried hard to catch up on hospital gossip and join in the good-natured character assassination of certain doctors and nurses they all knew. But as the evening wore on she grew more and more restless. Finally, she jumped up.

“Belle, I know you’re going to think I’m menopausal or something, but would you mind very much if I change our plans and I don’t stay overnight after all?”

“Jessie Sherwood.”

“Well, I can’t bear the thought of my precious lamb being mishandled by that woman,” Jessie said fiercely. “Or suppose she got really sick today? Those maids don’t know one end of a baby from the other. If I leave now and take a cab, I can catch the 11.05...”

She just made the train. The trip was stifling and miserable. Jessie lolled all the way in a sickish stupor, dozing.

It was a few minutes past midnight when she got off at the Taugus station and unlocked her car. Even here the night was a humid swelter, and the inside of the Dodge was like an oven. She rolled down the windows, but she did not wait for the car to cool off. She drove off at once, head throbbing.

She thought Charlie Peterson would never come out of the gatehouse. He finally appeared, yawning.

“What a night,” he said, slapping at the mosquitoes.

“Yes.”

“Hot in town, too, Miss Sherwood?”

“Beastly.”

“At least you could go to an air-cooled movie. What makes this job so tough is having to look at this damn water while you’re boiling to death—”

“I have such a headache,” Jessie murmured. “Would you please let me through, Mr. Peterson?”

“Sorry!” He raised the barrier, offended.

Jessie drove up the Nair Island road, sighing. Now that she was here, it all seemed rather silly. The Humffrey house up ahead was dark. If the baby were sick or wakeful the house would be blazing with lights. Mrs. Humffrey took it for granted that her employes were delighted to share her troubles and got them all out of bed the moment anything went wrong. Well, this was one night when none of them was going to be disturbed. She’d leave the car just inside the grounds and let herself in the front door quietly and tiptoe upstairs and go to bed. The sound of the car going around the driveway to the garage might wake someone up.

Jessie turned off her ignition, locked the car, and groped toward the front of the house. She located the key in her bag by touch, let herself in, shut the door carefully, felt around until she found the newel post, and climbed the stairs, grateful for the heavy carpeting.

Then, at the door of her room, after all her caution, she dropped her purse. In the silence of the dark house it sounded like a bomb going off.

Jessie was feeling around on all fours, trying to locate the purse and keep her head from falling, too, when a whiplash voice a few feet away said, “Don’t move.”

“Oh, dear,” Jessie said with an exasperated laugh. “It’s only me, Mr. Humffrey. I’m sorry.”

A light flashed on her.

“Miss Sherwood.” As her eyes accommodated to the glare she saw his robed figure utterly still, a flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other. “I thought you were spending the night in New York.”

Jessie plucked her purse from the floor, feeling like a fool. “I changed my mind, Mr. Humffrey. I developed a headache, and the city was so hot...”

Why did he keep the gun pointing at her that way?

“Alton! What is it?”

“Oh, dear,” Jessie said again. She wished he would lower the gun.

Light flooded the master bedroom doorway. Mrs. Humffrey peered out, clutching one of her exquisite negligees at the bosom. Her face looked pinched and old with fear.

“It’s Miss Sherwood, Sarah.” Only then did Alton Humffrey drop the gun into the pocket of his robe. “That was foolish of you, Miss Sherwood, stealing in this way, without warning. You might have been shot. Why didn’t you phone?”

“I didn’t have time. I made my mind up at the last minute.” Jessie began to feel angry. Questioning her as if she were a criminal! “I’m terribly sorry my clumsiness woke you up. Is the baby all right, Mrs. Humffrey?”

“He was last time I looked in.” Sarah Humffrey came out into the hall and switched on the lights. Her husband went back to their room without another word. “Have you been in to Michael yet?”

“No. How is your cold?”

“Oh, it’s all right. Baby was cross all day, I can’t imagine why. I didn’t leave him for a moment. And I’ve been in to him twice since I put him beddy-bye. Do you suppose he could have caught my cold?”

“I’ll have a look,” Jessie said wearily. “But I’m sure he’s all right, Mrs. Humffrey, or this noise would have made him restless. Why don’t you go back to bed?”

“I’ll look with you.”

Jessie shrugged. She opened her door, turned on her bedlamp, and tossed her hat and gloves on the bureau.

“I hope I did all the right things,” Mrs. Humffrey said. “He was so fretful at 10.30, the last time I looked at him before I went to bed, that I put a big pillow between his head and the headboard. I was afraid he’d hurt himself. Their tender little skulls...”

Jessie wished her tender little skull would stop aching. She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. “I’ve told you, Mrs. Humffrey, that’s not a wise thing to do when they’re so tiny. The bumpers give him all the protection necessary.” She hurried toward the nursery.

“But he’s such an active child.” Sarah Humffrey stopped in the doorway, a handkerchief pressed hygienically over her mouth and nose.

The nursery was hot and close, although Jessie noticed in the faint glow of the nightlight that the Venetian blind on the window overlooking the driveway was drawn all the way up and the window was wide open. Also, someone had removed the window screen, and the room was full of bugs.

She could have slapped the ineffectual woman in the doorway.

She tiptoed over to the crib.

A vice closed over her heart, and squeezed. The baby had kicked his covers off. He was lying on his back, his fat little legs helter-skelter, and the pillow was over his face and torso.

It seemed to Jessie Sherwood that a million years passed between the constriction of her heart and its violent leap. In that infinite instant all she could do was stare down at the motionless little body, paralyzed.

Then she snatched the pillow away, kicked the side of the crib down, and bent over.

“Put the overhead light on,” she said hoarsely.

“What? What’s the matter?” quavered Mrs. Humffrey.

“Do as I say. The light!”

Mrs. Humffrey fumbled for the switch on the wall, the other hand still over her mouth and nose.

Jessie Sherwood, R.N., went through the motions as prescribed, her fingers working swiftly, by training and habit as cool as a surgeon’s — as if they were, in fact, the fingers of a surgeon, or of anyone not herself. Inside a sick something was forming, a nausea of disbelief.

Two months old. Two months.

And as she worked over the cold little limbs, trying not to see him as he was but only as he had been — in her arms, in his bath, in his pram on the beach — she knew he would never be any older.

“He’s dead,” Jessie said without stopping, without looking up. “He’s suffocated, I’m giving him artificial respiration but it’s useless, he’s been dead for some time, Mrs. Humffrey. Call your husband, call a doctor — not Dr. Holliday, Greenwich is too far away — call Dr. Wicks, and don’t faint till you do, Mrs. Humffrey. Please don’t faint till you call them.”

Mrs. Humffrey screamed piercingly and fainted.

With some surprise Jessie found herself a long time later wrapping another blanket around Sarah Humffrey in the master bedroom. The spirits of ammonia were on the bed shelf near the books on infant care, with the stopper out, so she knew she had done the right things automatically, or perhaps it was at Dr. Wicks’s direction — she could hear his voice from the hall. Mrs. Humffrey was lying across the bed, her head hanging over the side; she was conscious, moaning, and Jessie thought it a pity that her professional training had made her bring the woman out of the blessed land of shock. In fact, Jessie thought, Sarah Humffrey would be better off dead.

Then she remembered, and the memory brought her to her senses.

Dear God, she thought.

She hauled the moaning woman to a comfortable position on the bed and walked out on her.

Now she remembered everything. Where had she been? How long was it? It would have taken some time for Dr. Wicks to dress and drive over. How long had he been here?

The doctor was in the hall talking to Alton Humffrey. The gaunt millionaire was leaning against the wall, shading his eyes as if the light hurt them.

“It’s always a question, Mr. Humffrey,” Dr. Wicks was saying. “I’m afraid we don’t know very much about this sort of thing. In some cases we find a widespread, diffuse infection, probably viral, that simply doesn’t show up except on autopsy, and not always then. It could have been that. If you’d consent to an autopsy—”

“No,” Alton Humffrey said. “No.”

She remembered his running into the nursery at Sarah Humffrey’s scream, the look on his face as he caught sight of the body in the crib, the terrible frozen look, like the risus sardonicus of tetanus. For fully a minute that look had held possession of him as he watched her trying to restore the function of the dead lungs, trying to coax the flaccid little rib cage into an elasticity it would never have again, trying to revive a tiny heart that had stopped beating long ago.

Then he said, “He’s really dead.”

And she had said, “Phone Dr. Wicks, please.”

And he had picked up his wife and carried her out, and a moment later Jessie had heard him phoning Dr. Wicks in a voice as frozen as his look had been.

After a while Jessie had stopped working the cold baby arms, covered the body, and gone to Mrs. Humffrey. Her husband was trying to revive her.

“I’ll do it,” Jessie had said, and he had gone out with long strides, in a release of stopped-up energy, as if his need for expending himself were overwhelming. As she worked over the unconscious woman she had heard him talking to the servants in a strangely considerate tone, and there were weepy female sounds and a sudden unbelievable shout from him — the patrician who never raised his voice! — a shout of pure rage, and immediately shocked silence. After that he had merely prowled downstairs and up, in the room and out, until Dr. Wicks arrived.

Jessie went up to them and leaned against the wall, too.

“Oh, Miss Sherwood.” Dr. Wicks looked relieved. He was a fashionable little man with a sun-blotched scalp. “How is Mrs. Humffrey?”

“She’s conscious, Doctor.”

“I’d better have a look at her. You’re going to have to handle your wife very carefully for a while, Mr. Humffrey.”

“Yes,” Alton Humffrey said, rousing himself. “Yes.”

Dr. Wicks picked up his bag and walked quickly into the master bedroom. The gaunt man unfolded himself and followed. Jessie shuffled after, her feet dragging. A wave of weakness surged over her, and for a moment the hall rocked. But she steadied herself and went into the bedroom.

Sarah Humffrey was weeping now, her bony shoulders jerking like something at the end of a fisherman’s line. Dr. Wicks was saying as if to a child, “That’s all right, Mrs. Humffrey, don’t mind us at all. It’s nature’s way of relieving tension. A good cry will make you feel better.”

“My baby,” she sobbed.

“It’s terribly unfortunate, a great tragedy. But these things do happen. I’ve seen babies go like that in the best-regulated nurseries.”

“The pillow,” she wept. “I put the pillow there to protect him, Doctor. Oh, God, how was I to know?”

“There’s no point in dwelling on it, Mrs. Humffrey, is there? What you need now is sleep.”

“I shouldn’t have let Miss Sherwood go off. She offered to stay. But no, I had to pretend I knew all about taking care of him...”

“Mrs. Humffrey, if you’re going to carry on like this—”

“I loved him,” the woman sobbed.

Dr. Wicks glanced at Jessie as if for professional support. But Jessie was standing there like a stone, stuck fast, wondering how to say it, wondering if it could be true, knowing it was true and loathing the knowledge.

I’m going to be sick any minute, she thought. Sick...

“I think,” Dr. Wicks said with a show of firmness, “we’ll have to give you something.”

Jessie heard him with surprise. Did it show that much? But then she saw that he was still talking to Mrs. Humffrey.

“No!” the woman screamed. “No, no, no!”

“All right, Mrs. Humffrey,” the doctor said hastily. “Just quiet down. Lie back...”

“Dr. Wicks,” her husband said.

“Yes, Mr. Humffrey.”

“I assume you’re intending to report this to the County Coroner’s office?” The millionaire had sheathed himself like a sword.

“Yes. A formality, of course—”

“I needn’t tell you how abhorrent all this is to me. I have some influence in Hartford, Doctor. If you’ll be good enough to co-operate—”

“Well, now, I don’t know, Mr. Humffrey,” Dr. Wicks said cautiously. “I have a sworn duty, you know.”

“I understand.” Jessie had the feeling that he was holding himself in the scabbard by sheer will. “Still, there are sometimes considerations above a sworn duty, Dr. Wicks. In exceptional cases, let us say. Haven’t you found it so in your practice?”

“I can’t say I have,” the physician replied in a stiffening tone. “Whatever it is you have in mind, Mr. Humffrey, I’m afraid the answer must be no.”

The millionaire’s mouth tightened. “All I’m asking is that Mrs. Humffrey and I be spared the ordeal of a coroner’s inquiry. It will mean newspaper reporters, an inquest, public testimony. It’s intolerable to have to face that, Doctor. Certainly my wife can’t in her condition. As her physician, surely you know that.”

“I’m as unhappy about this misfortune as you are, Mr. Humffrey. But what can I do?”

“It was an accident! Are people to be crucified in public because of an accident?”

Jessie Sherwood thought if they did not stop she would scream.

“I know it was an accident, Mr. Humffrey. But you’re placing me—”

She heard herself saying in a very loud voice, “No, it wasn’t.”

Dr. Wicks turned sharply. “What did you say, Nurse?”

Mrs. Humffrey’s body swiveled on the bed as she tried to focus her swollen eyes on Jessie.

“I said, Dr. Wicks, it was not an accident.”

For a faraway moment Jessie thought Alton Humffrey was going to spring at her throat. But he merely said, “What do you mean, Miss Sherwood?”

“I mean that somebody else entered the nursery after Mrs. Humffrey went to bed.”

The tall man looked at her with burning eyes.

Jessie steeled herself and returned his look.

“That baby was murdered, Mr. Humffrey, and if you don’t call the police — this minute — I’m going to.”